How do you organize your collection?

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by phatrat1982

I am currently facing this MAJOR issue right now, before I started buying Blu Ray I had sold all my DVD's and ripped all the content to HDD's for viewing using a WDTV HD Media Player, which was working perfectly until two things happened, 1 I got a Blu Ray player, and 2, my parents and I decided to try opening a video rental store, which meant buying DVD's again.


So now I have over 250 DVD's and almost 50 Blu Rays and just barely 6 HD-DVD's


Either way it is a massive project the would require more energy, and time, than I have or am willing to devote.

How's business in the "250 DVD Rental Store" ???????? and how could organizing a couple of hundred DVDs be a "Massive Project" I don't organize my DVDs, and I have 1,200 or so, but if I did.... I don't think I would classify it a "massive project"

If you can't organize a couple hundred DVDs.... I think you should reconsider before you thrust yourself into business ownership.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

How's business in the "250 DVD Rental Store" ???????? and how could organizing a couple of hundred DVDs be a "Massive Project" I don't organize my DVDs, and I have 1,200 or so, but if I did.... I don't think I would classify it a "massive project"

If you can't organize a couple hundred DVDs.... I think you should reconsider before you thrust yourself into business ownership.

250? That's a piece of cake! Come to my house and see if you can categorize by artist the several thousand LP's I have.

John

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by John72953

250? That's a piece of cake! Come to my house and see if you can categorize by artist the several thousand LP's I have.

John

No problem John...... you want them Alpha-numerically by SKU???

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

No problem John...... you want them Alpha-numerically by SKU???

Well duh!!!! If you're gonna do it, then it's gotta be done right!

John

[Popcorn_Bliss]

I store my own personal collection in "AFI Top 100" style, so to speak. I have my own “Top 100” movies that are really just those movies I simply return to again and again and re-watch the most and which mean the most to me in terms of pure “ease of enjoyability”, and comfort. It’s not a “greatest” or acclaimed list in any popular or traditional way.

What I do is use a nice wooden bookshelf with space for 100 or so movies and as more of my personal "Top 100" are released on blu ray, I add it to the shelf in its proper "ranking position". As it stands now, most the Top 100 is still mostly in the form of original DVD's, not blu-rays. But the collection is slowly turning all blu! What a beautiful sight!

Anyways, I love collecting the crystal blue cases in this “most enjoyed” Top 100 fashion because it guarantees that any movie I have in open view at my fingertips is truly a movie I LIKE (if not love)! You can’t grab a bad/unknown/unwanted movie anywhere in the collection (in my eyes)…

As much as I genuinely love to collect the films that DO make my personal Top 100, I also don't want just "any movie” that I dont really like or never watch sitting on shelves next to the "good ones". I don’t even buy films that I might view as “well-made” if I don’t enjoy the subject or know I won’t re-watch it at least semi-frequently. I like my active collection to always consist of movies I truly enjoy and re-watch first and foremost. To me that’s the only real “important” and logical kind of “Top 100”. I guess one can say I'm the type who loves to focus on a more manageable theme and then enjoy and appreciate the subtleties of that select group rather than just acquire endless quantities for quantities sake.

That’s not to say I’m not as addicted as everyone else to adding a new blu-ray to the collection! It’s just that I typically have a very select and known movie that I’m after when collecting. Or if I do just “blindly” discover or take a chance on an unknown movie, it usually happens rather sporadically. I don’t just walk into Best Buy every Tuesday and take “one of each” off the new release shelf. Quite frankly, very very few movies inspire me to do that in such quantities! Yet I love the artwork and the collecting aspect of blu ray discs/slipcovers but I'm more likely to collect, say, the US, Canada and UK blu-rays of a single favorite film (just for completist sake) rather than spend that $60 on three different blu-rays that I’m not familiar with just simply to forget about them, not like them or never watch them. But I suspect I might be a bit unusual in that regard.

And I also just love the instant variety yet restrained quantity of collecting my discs in a "Top 100" storage fashion. One can view the spines of the 100 blu cases (eventually) at a glance and instantly see a loose but fairly accurate ranked snapshot of my personal tastes in movies I enjoy and watch the most (whether that’s for better or worse).

Or I like the fact that I can just randomly walk up to the shelves on any given night and say, "Let's see... maybe I'll go to bed watching something from the shelf that contains films #35 through #50 here..." If I watch one of those films enough over the next week and really fall in love with it all over again, I might store it away a bit HIGHER on the list than where I removed it! So the theme of the collection is constant but slight up and down shifting and new entries of the movies themselves are always possible. Generally speaking, the ranking/storing of the movies stays fairly unchanged (or I wouldn’t have them where they are on the shelves to begin with), but inevitably, a few films will grow more fondly for me over time and some may lessen a bit as well. And of course newer favorite films can always find their way onto the shelves and into the ranking as I find myself liking it more and more over time. It’s really just my own movie-collecting version of a Hot 100 Billboard Pop Singles Chart (only on a far less fluid and fickle scale).

Then again, I might just be crazy with collecting my blu-rays/dvd’s this way, but to me it gives the collection more of a handy, selective and "all-time" type of appearance (just like how people generally view the AFI list), even if the collection is really just made up films that are my own personal favorites. I still think there must just be something in me that loves lists, rankings and organizing things by "most watched" or "greatest", even if it's just based on your own frivolous tastes. But it’s definitely fun waiting for all these new blus to come out and then filing them away in their proper spot and replacing the DVD version (at least for display purposes).

Of course, no Top 100 or collection is written in stone. If any future films come out that I fall in love with, I can always add them to the "ranking" and simply push whatever is at #100, #99 back to #101, #102 etc. If I discover enough RE-WATCHABLE new films (or older films I simply never seen before), then I'll happily leave space on another shelf to make room for an expanded "Top 150-200" etc...

Finally, the beauty of this "ranking system" for storing my movies is that it also eliminates the usual difficulty of "how do I find a particular movie". The reason for this is A) I'm only dealing (thus far) with 100-200 top favorite movies in the first place and B) I can often know just by memory where any particular film is located because of the fact I stored it in order of how often I watch it/enjoy it. I might not know offhand if I have a movie in the #7 spot, #9 spot or #10 spot but I DO have a constant knowledge if that film is a "top ten/fifteen" movie for me. Therefore, I won't have to scan very far down the shelf typically. Even if I lived enough lifetimes to build a "Top 500" favorite/re-watchable movie collection, I still think I could keep fairly accurate mental knowledge of where any film sits within the shelves. This method only becomes real difficult to track down individual movies if it got to a "Top 1000" or so...

Besides, I still can keep a COMPUTER/PAPER record of this Top 100/200 collection so that if I ever did wish to see how many films I have of a particular studio or decade etc, I can easily search and arrange the order on Excel. So the "how do I locate a single movie" problem is largely a non-issue with this way of collecting (at least for me).

This is a fun topic though!

[bboisvert]

I use a CanAm drawer system and have very broad genre categories (SF/horror/fantasy, Comedy, Drama, Thriller/Noir, Action/War, Music, Serials, Sports, Documentary, Silents, etc.)

Alphabetical within those categories, mixed in with the DVDs. I don't separate by format.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by killowertz

Movies alphabetical, then concerts alphabetical, and finally tv shows alphabetical.

ditto that, although i also don't seperate my blu-rays from my normal dvds though, they're all together. but i only have tv shows that have ended on my shelf, otherwise i'd run out of room. tv shows that are currently airing are stacked in my wardrobe closet on one of the free shelves. music dvds are also stacked to get more space.

[Sagacious Koreo]

I mix and mingle all the different ones (movies, concerts & TV shows), but it's all alphabetized. 0-9 and A-Z.

[crazyBLUE]

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[MCT]

Originally Posted by egonlongshanks

My blurays are in alphabetical order.

Same. I have my box sets and steelbooks in the middle shelves, seperate from the standard cases, also in alphabetical order.

[Sagacious Koreo]

Originally Posted by crazyBLUE

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Man, it would suck if you wanted to get a movie out of the middle.

[crazyBLUE]

Originally Posted by Sagacious Koreo

Man, it would suck if you wanted to get a movie out of the middle.

Just give it A quick pull & comes right out

[davidthenikonuser]

I have them stacked up some in my room and some in the living room.

[jonsmith369]

Originally Posted by wallendo

First by Genre (Action, Comedy, Family, SciFi/Fantasy, Musical, TV Series)

Then alphabetically within each genre; but, I keep series together such as James Bond, Harry Potter, Batman, Kubrick films, etc.

Strange sized boxsets, etc go on the top shelf, as do less family-friendly fare.

Organizing by genre first is helpful because frequently I'm in the mood for a certain type of movie.

This last part exactly states my feelings on this subject.

I do a sort of loosely genre based thing, but within genres anything goes. It started as custom sub grouping based on similar themes or actors or source material. Superhero Films starts off with Batman 1989 continues with out Batman films in chronological order then will be other DC heroes, then all Marvel heroes loosely ordered by which film series came out first, then other superheroes and onto more mature graphic novel adaptations like Sin City and 300 which leads into stuff like Shoot em Up because it feels similar to me.

Most of my transitions between sections are vague and random. This leads to great confusion for my guests when selecting a film to watch. I'm considering making an excel file to organize so I can sort by Alpha to help people who hate my setup.

Since I do not have kids of my own and I don't like other people touching my collection I have put all of my Disney and other animation on the top shelf. (I once watched a young child remove a slipcover from a movie as though it were birthday present wrapping paper that needed to be torn off to get to the movie and I don't want to have to kill a child if they do that at my house.)

[Cowboy300]

Maybe I said it somewhere on this beatiful site, but I currently have them alphabetical but I'm thinking about going to production year. Thoughts?

[csdot]

ive gone through a bunch of different systems, alphabetic, by studio, by production year, by director. now i have them so anything i have more than one by a director are in order by the last name and the titles themselves are chronological. everything else is alphabetized

[SteelPen]

My Blus are in alphabetical order! But, some sequels are mixed!

Example:
Dark Knight behind Batman Begins
Quantum of Solace behind Casino Royale
Serenity behind Firefly
All the Hulk movies are together
Next Avengers behind Ultimate Avengers

[Popcorn_Bliss]

This isn't exactly do-able with my current "AFI 100" style of storing movies that I rambled about in the post above this, but another way of sorting movies that I personally love is by actual "camera format and aspect ratio".

I think I'm a bit odd in that one as well because it isn't really a "practical" or popular way to look at movies. But, for some reason, I've always had a fascination with the formats and color negatives etc that my favorite films were shot in. Especially with older films of the technicolor era etc.

For example, I like keeping at least a sortable computer file of all my favorite films that were filmed in VistaVision (The Searchers 1956, North By Northwest 1959) or those on CinemaScope, PanaVision etc.

I also find that sorting my movies this way is very educational and enlightening as well from a cinematography-lovers point of view! Rather than picking a movie to watch in terms of the genre or director etc, it's fun to just pick a FORMAT to watch (between several films). You start to see the similarities to the way all Cinemascope films look or all PanaVision films etc and get a more appreciative idea as to why the format was chosen for the picture etc.

Probably not a practical way to look at (or organize) movies, but it's one I really enjoy! Particularly as a lover of cinematography and the days of vivid technicolor films (in particular).

[jacobsever]

Criterion dvds & blu rays
Masters of Cinema dvds & blu rays/BFI/StudioCanal
UK imports/porn/tv shows
Digibooks + A-Z

[veg@s007]

I have both dvd and blurays organized by genre. It goes by Action, Comedy, Horror, Drama/Suspense.